plastic-teaspoon's - Rented List

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"The Disaster Artist" is based on the making of Tommy Wiseau's cult-classic disasterpiece 'The Room' ("The Greatest Bad Movie of All Time").

Director and star James Franco transforms the true story of aspiring filmmaker and infamous Hollywood outsider Tommy Wiseau - an artist whose passion was as sincere as his methods were questionable - into a celebration of friendship, artistic expression, and dreams pursued against insurmountable odds.

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Ruthless criminals, a dedicated honest cop, sultry women and a gripping plot - all the elements of a classic police action-drama are here in force. Police Sergeant Bannion (Glenn Ford) is investigating the apparent suicide of a corrupt cop, then is suddenly ordered to stop - and The Big Heat is on.

Driven to unravel the mystery, Bannion continues probing until an explosion meant for him, kills his wife. He resigns from he force and soon learns that behind it all is the powerful underworld led by Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his cold-blooded henchman, Vince Stone (Lee Marvin). When Stone's girl Debby (Gloria Grahame) makes a play for Bannion, Stone disfigures her face and in revenge, she tells all she knows. A life-or-death confrontation between Bannion and Stone brings this classic film noir thriller to a climatic unmissable finale!

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Film, Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett's lone work for projected cinema, is a beguiling experimental short film in which a probing camera pursues a character named "O", played by silent screen legend Buster Keaton.

In his Kino-Essay, 'Notfilm', Ross Lipman explores the history surrounding the production of 'Film'. Citing the work of Bufiuel, Vertov, Vigo and Eisenstein, and featuring interviews with cinematographer Haskell Wexler, Billie Whitelaw, producer Barney Rosset and others, 'Notfilm' examines Film's genesis, production, themes, and philosophical implications.

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With a second-hand trumpet and the loving guidance of a brilliant bluesman, a lonely boy grows into manhood as a superb musician whose talent carries him from honky-tonks to posh supper clubs.

But his desperate search for the elusive high note trapped in his mind but impossible to play starts him on a boozy downward slide. Charged with dynamic performances by Kirk Douglas (the title role), Doris Day, Lauren Bacall and Hoagy Carmichael and pitch-perfect direction by Michael Curtiz, the film is a feast of hot, cool, moody jazz. Legendary Harry James dubbed Douglas' hornwork. Day brings another fine instrument - her voice - to four standards. Movie and music lovers will be glad to meet this Man.

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Melodrama casts noirish shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz.

Its iconic performance by Joan Crawford as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford's career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by the bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a successful restaurant chain, the ingratitude of her materialistic firstborn (a diabolical Ann Blyth) becomes a venomous serpent's tooth, setting in motion an endless cycle of desperate overtures and heartless recriminations. Recasting James M. Cain's rich psychological novel as a murder mystery, this bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition is both unremittingly hard-boiled and sumptuously emotional.

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"Primer" is set in the industrial park/suburban tract-home fringes of an unnamed contemporary city where two young engineers, Abe (David Sullivan) and Aaron (Shane Carruth), are members of a small group of men who work by day for a large corporation while conducting extracurricular experiments on

their own time in a garage. While tweaking their current project, a device that reduces the apparent mass of any object placed inside it by blocking gravitational pull, they accidentally discover that it has some highly unexpected capabilities - ones that could enable them to do and to have seemingly anything they want. Taking advantage of this unique opportunity is the first challenge they face. Dealing with the consequences is the next.

When private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is visited by an old friend, this sets in train a series of events in which he's hired to search for a missing novelist (Sterling Hayden) and finds himself on the wrong side of vicious gangsters.

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Director Stanley Kubrick's career comes into sharp focus in this compelling and revealing documentary narrated by Tome Cruise.

A detailed picture of the cinematic legend emerges via fascinating footage of Kubrick in his early years, at work on film sets and at home and via candid commentary from collaborators, colleagues and family. From the music he chose to the cameras he used to his unrealised projects (including A.I. Artificial Intelligence, the much-anticipated Kubrick project directed by Steven Spielberg), you'll uncover a treasure trove of information. Drawing on Kubrick archives, it offers for the first time a truly intimate portrait of his life among family and friends. There has never been a more essential visual companion piece to the man and his movies.

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Cruise plays Dr. William Harford, a New Yorker who plunges into an erotic foray that threatens his marriage - and may even ensnare him in a lurid murder mystery - after his wife's (Nicole Kidman) admission of sexual longings.

As the story sweeps from doubt and fear to self-discovery and reconciliation, Kubrick orchestrates it with masterful flourishes.

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This is the inside story of Street Art - a brutal and revealing account of what happens when fame, money and vandalism collide.

Exit Through the Gift Shop follows an eccentric shop-keeper turned amateur film-maker as he attempts to capture many of the world's most infamous vandals on camera, only to have a British stencil artist named Banksy turn the camcorder back on its owner with wildly unexpected results. One of the most provocative films about art ever made, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a chaotic study of low-level criminality, comradeship and incompetence. By turns shocking, hilarious and absurd, this is an enthralling modern-day fairytale... with bolt cutters.

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It's a rare person who would give up fame and fortune to toil in obscurity for someone else's creative vision. Yet, that's exactly what Leon Vitali did after his acclaimed performance as Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

The young actor surrendered his thriving career to become Kubrick's loyal right-hand man. For more than two decades, Leon played a crucial role behind-the-scenes helping Kubrick make and maintain his legendary body of work. The complex, interdependent relationship between Leon and Kubrick was founded on devotion, sacrifice and the grueling, joyful reality of the creative process. By entering their unique world we come to understand how the mundane gives rise to the magnificent as timeless cinema is brought to life at its most practical and profound level.

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Film-makers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sense a story unfolding as they begin to film the life of Ariel's brother, Nev. They have no idea that their project will lead to the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives as they unravel an intriguing Facebook mystery.

A reality thriller that is a shocking product of our times, Catfish is a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue.

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"You will go to sleep: you will wake up. It will be as if those hours never existed." Beautiful and quietly reckless university student Lucy (Emily Browning - the mesmerising star of Sucker Punch) takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty to pay her way through college.

In the Sleeping Beauty Chamber men seek an erotic experience that requires Lucy's absolute submission. This experience starts to bleed into Lucy's daily life and she develops an increasing need to know what happens to her when she is asleep. Julia Leigh's powerful and provocative vision is one of the most startling debut features of recent years.

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Having left behind his life as a gifted concert pianist, Charlie (Charles Aznavour) sees out his downcast days tinkling the ivories in a dingy Parisian jazz bar. One day his brother Chico (Albert Rémy) arrives, searching for sanctuary from a gang of crooks that he's double-crossed.

Charlie offers to help but soon finds his murky past catching up with him and before long is embroiled in an affair that he can no longer control.

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In 1998 Marco Pantani, the most flamboyant and popular cyclist of his era, won both the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia - a titanic feat of physical and mental endurance that no rider has repeated since.

He was a hero to millions - the saviour of professional cycling following the doping scandals which threatened to destroy the sport. However, less than six years later, aged just 34, he died alone, in a cheap Italian hotel room. This film is not just about cycling but an emotional exploration of what drives athletes to compete; man versus mountain, athlete versus the system, Marco Pantani versus himself.